the great, great tinkerer wrote:
>i (looking for an argument that was agreeable, part of course was
>solving issues...) wrote that: "The best way to protect a child on the
>Internet is through parental supervision and not unconstitutional
>legislation." my argument was for making software internet filters a
>standard on all pc's, i outlined how the filterring system would be
>structured and how filter was indeed the best solution.
>my paper contained such beautiful statements as:
>
>"Any bill with the goal to protect children on the Internet would have
>to protect the freedom of speech, be technologically and rationally
>feasible, not affect the rapid growth of the Internet, and not limit the
>educational value of the Internet."
>
>of course i showed how internet filters met all this criterea ;-)
Well, that's good- BUT- I have a different solution. I believe there should be no censorship, 'internet filters' included, at *all* of the WWW. I say, [Elizabethan tone] "Let them have porn!"
See, it could be how I was raised. My parents never put any restrictions on what I viewed, read, or tried to "protect" me from pornography or such things. As a child I got my fill of occasional horror films, R-rated films, adult books, and porn included. Therefore, the allure simply is not there.
After all, is pornography really any more harmful than commercials or violent cartoons these days? I don't think so, other than it involves the taboo subject of...*hush*...sex. I think most kids would become bored with these imagined naughty things if it were not censored. Whether you shelter them from it or not, if your kid is destined to be a so-called pervert, then so shall they be, later in life and as an adult.
Censorship is futile, anyway you look at it. Frankly, most kids waste their time on the computers in school regardless. I think a far better solution would be to monitor how children utilize their spare time on a computer, and require them to make use of it. Of *course* if you give a kid the freedom to "surf" the Net for whatever they want, most likely they are going to try to break the rules and go somewhere forbidden. Duh. If a student has the time and ability to download pornography from the internet during school hours, then I think that says something far worse about the school system and education in general than the student. And if a kid goes home after school and has unlimited Internet access and chooses to search for porn, so be it- if porn wasn't their diversion, then they would be playing mindless video games instead, or god forbid, watching Oprah. *cheap shot*
Kudos to parents like mine who actually introduced the joys of reading and thinking to me instead of letting my mind rot with senseless garbage. And if it weren't for the Internet in classrooms and schools, I never would have accidently stumbled upon the study of memetics in high school.
~kjs